AI Reliability & RAG
RAG pipelines, citation tracing, multi-LLM verification, neurosymbolic workflows, and evidence-backed health coaching experiences.
Vihan Patil
Software engineer building reliable AI, edge, and full-stack systems.
I am an M.S. Computer Science and Engineering graduate from UC Santa Cruz with hands-on experience across AI explainability research, autonomous drone systems, and production-style full-stack applications. My work pairs RAG and LLM verification, computer vision, and asynchronous backend pipelines with practical product delivery.
Mar 2026
M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering
75%
Image-processing throughput improvement at Vaara Drone
150+
Students supported as a UCSC teaching assistant
About
AI, systems, and full-stack engineering grounded in graduate CS work.
I build across the stack: RAG and LLM reliability, drone perception pipelines, real-time data products, and the backend systems that keep those workflows fast and dependable.
Computer Vision & Edge Systems
OpenCV and NDVI image workflows, real-time object detection, Raspberry Pi deployment, MAVLink telemetry, and drone mapping pipelines.
Full-Stack Product Engineering
TypeScript, React, Node.js, Express, Docker, AWS EC2, and resilient ingestion layers for real-time data products.
Education
UC Santa Cruz - software foundations, AI, and training across systems.
My academic work complements hands-on engineering roles with coursework in distributed systems, machine learning, deep learning, AI, computer vision, databases, algorithms, and probability and statistics.
Sep 2024 - Mar 2026
M.S., Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, Santa Cruz
- Graduate work spanning distributed systems, machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, databases, algorithms, and probability and statistics.
Sep 2020 - Jun 2024
B.S., Computer Science
University of California, Santa Cruz
- Built a strong systems and software foundation across algorithms, databases, statistics, AI, ML, and computer vision.
Experience
Research, internships, and teaching with measurable engineering outcomes.
Recent work spans AI explainability research, autonomous drone systems, real-time computer vision, production-style data ingestion, and teaching support for a 150+ student course.
Sep 2024 - Mar 2026
Researcher
UCSC AI Explainability & Accountability (AIEA) Lab
Researching systems that improve the relevance, interpretability, and structured reasoning of generated AI responses.
- Built RAG pipelines with citation tracing and multi-LLM verification to reduce hallucinations and improve answer quality.
- Implemented neurosymbolic workflows combining knowledge-graph retrieval with transformer-based models.
Jun 2025 - Sep 2025
Software Engineering Intern (Return)
Vaara Drone
Optimized drone image processing and simulated reinforcement-learning landing policies for autonomous systems.
- Designed an asynchronous multiprocessing pipeline for image ingestion and preprocessing, improving throughput by 75% with optimized OpenCV and NDVI workflows.
- Simulated and tested reinforcement-learning landing policies for high-precision autonomous landing, emphasizing stability, convergence behavior, and safety constraints.
Jun 2024 - Sep 2024
Software Engineering Intern
Vaara Drone
Developed edge-based mapping and evaluation systems for low-latency drone area surveillance.
- Engineered an edge-based drone mapping pipeline on Raspberry Pi, integrating real-time object detection for efficient area surveillance.
- Built evaluation tooling around MAVLink command and telemetry to maintain reliable area mapping.
Sep 2025 - Mar 2026
Teaching Assistant, TIM 172A/B/P/Q
University of California, Santa Cruz
Supporting Management of Technology coursework through grading operations, rubrics, office hours, and team project reviews.
- Coordinated grading workflows, maintained rubrics, and ensured consistent evaluation across a 150+ student course.
- Led project check-ins and office hours while assessing product concepts and end-to-end supply chain strategies.
Selected work
Projects that connect AI reliability, data ingestion, and user-facing products.
These projects reflect the strongest themes from my resume: evidence-backed AI responses, low-latency data systems, resilient pipelines, and full-stack delivery.
HealthWise
FeaturedSep 2025 - Mar 2026
AIRAGHealth Tech
An agentic RAG health coach that provides sustainable nutrition guidance with evidence-based responses and verification loops.
Impact
Created a HealthCoach AI chatbot for personalized wellness insights and implemented watch-data sync to drive context-aware coaching from user health trends.
RAGLLM PipelinesVerification LoopsHealth Data Sync
Blockchain Analytics
FeaturedJan 2024 - Jun 2024
Full-StackDataWeb3
A full-stack TypeScript, React, Node, and Express application for real-time blockchain visualization and smart-contract analysis.
Impact
Containerized the application with Docker, deployed on AWS EC2, and implemented low-latency on-chain ingestion with resilient error handling.
TypeScriptReactNode.jsExpressDockerAWS EC2
FlashGOV
Oct 2023 - Dec 2023
AIData PipelineMultilingual
A scraping and summarization pipeline for Chinese government websites that produces multilingual summaries.
Impact
Added multi-model verification and lightweight cross-language quality checks to improve factual consistency and summary reliability.
Web ScrapingSummarizationLLMsQuality Checks
Skills
AI systems, full-stack engineering, computer vision, and cloud tooling.
A focused set of technologies I use across RAG applications, research systems, drone software, and production-ready web products.
PythonTypeScriptReactNode.jsSQLComputer VisionOpenCVReinforcement LearningRAG/LLM PipelinesAgentic RAGMulti-LLM VerificationCitation TracingKnowledge Graph RetrievalNeurosymbolic WorkflowsDockerKubernetesAirflowAWS EC2GCP Cloud StorageNDVI Processing
Online presence
Professional contact points for roles and collaborations.
The fastest way to verify my background or start a conversation is through LinkedIn or email.
Contact
Open to full-time software engineering opportunities.
I am most interested in roles where AI systems, backend infrastructure, computer vision, data pipelines that are central to the engineering challenge.
vihanpatil7@gmail.com (408) 529-1810
Availability
Open to full-time software engineering opportunities. US Citizen.